A Note from Kelly King: The month of May can be overwhelming. Your calendar may be full as well as your normal day-to-day responsibilities. You may feel like you are “drowning.” In today’s article, Courtney Veazey, shares her recent experience and how the Lord gave her peace in the midst of a crazy season. I hope you will be encouraged today.
Late one night recently, I sat at my writing desk working on a current project that is by far the largest and most challenging academic assignment I have ever been tasked with completing. In no other season than now have I identified more with Noah and the building of his ark and the intense warfare that accompanied such an undertaking. When I realized my brain had reached its limit that particular night, I closed up my laptop and books, pushed away from the desk, and subsequently fell to my knees in prayer. In brief supplication I simply said to God, “I’m overwhelmed, and I’m drowning.”
Within minutes of the “amen,” I had gotten into bed and as my hand reached the chain of my bedside lamp to turn out the light, a long-forgotten memory suddenly flashed across my mind and with it tears flushed my eyes. The memory was of an incident that took place when I was around the age of four and out fishing with my dad on a lake near where we lived. Growing up in Florida, I had literally taken swim lessons before I could walk. But when I jumped off the back of the fishing boat at one point that day, I found myself in a situation where swimming skills were of no use. Our boat was near an edge where wild sawgrass, lily pads, and other lake inhabitants flourished. When I went down into the water, I inadvertently got tangled up in weeds unseen. Trapped and feeling panicked, I remember looking up through the murky green-colored water and criss-crossed blades of sawgrass over my face, but I was unable to get free to swim to the surface. Then suddenly, as a cat snatches up their young by the nape of the neck, my dad’s arm came bursting through and yanked me up out of the water and debris. There I was, dangling in the air with the back of my t-shirt being tightly held in the firm grip of my father’s strong hand. And on that late night recently in my bedroom, while feeling that I was emotionally in a similar situation, simultaneously with that flash of memory I heard the Lord say, “Baby, I’m not going to let you drown…”
With a peace I had not possessed prior to praying that night, I fell asleep praising God by a name which I had never called Him before—the “Memory Keeper.” Just think—not only are the very hairs of your head all numbered (Matthew 10:30), but He has every moment of your life accounted for. You have never escaped His notice. And being that He is so well acquainted with each of us (see Psalm 139), our Lord knows the depths of our difficulties. Though He may allow the elements to have their way for a time, we can trust that His intentions are for our refinement, never our destruction. So take heart today, daughter, your Father is near, and He won’t let you drown.
As the testimony of the psalmist affirms, “Praise our God, O peoples, let the sound of His praise be heard; He has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. For You, O God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but You brought us to a place of abundance…Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld His love from me.” (Psalm 66:8-12,20, NIV)
Courtney considers the places she has lived, the ministry she has taken part in, and the people she has met along the way to be one of God’s greatest gifts to her. A native Floridian (yes, those actually exist), Courtney has also lived and held various ministry positions in South Carolina, Northern California, and currently Louisiana where she is the Director of Women’s Academic Study Programs at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Whether on a lake with a wakeboard or on a mountain with a snowboard, Courtney loves taking risks, having adventures, traveling to new places, meeting new people, and all the while discovering amazing things about life and the Author who is writing the script.